Anti-Aliased: You've been Auto-Assaulted, part deux
I'm one of those people that likes to think that NCsoft has enough money to get by on. It's just my gut reaction that if you have a few successful games then you probably have some spending money in your wallet. So, I like to think that NCsoft, even though they certainly took a pretty huge hit when they invested in Tabula Rasa, could have easily kept the development process going. Perhaps it would have been much slower than it currently was, but there was no reason it couldn't keep going on some type level.
They have, at least, provided some compensation for players who are currently subscribed to the game; the chance to try out games like City of Heroes and Lineage 2 are offered in the stead of TR gameplay time.
Take a look around at some of the other companies. CCP, a much smaller and much more unknown group at the time of EVE Online's launch, somehow kept it together to form EVE into a really amazing game. And speaking of unbearable crashes with heavily funded games, Funcom is still driving Age of Conan and Anarchy Online forward, and Anarchy Online was one of the worst launches in MMO history. These are two groups that have had some of the largest setbacks of all the games we talk about, but their games are still in functioning order. I'm also going to go out on a limb here and say that these two groups probably were making less when they made the decision to keep their game going and not close the doors. NCsoft still has games like Lineage, Lineage II, City of Heroes, and Guild Wars to fall back on.
Speaking of MMO giants who have a few games up their sleeve, look over at Sony Online Entertainment. What you're about to hear is a rare moment indeed, because I'm going to say something nice about SOE. All of their games still function, and they're very willing to keep development going when a game is in danger of failure.
The Matrix Online and Vanguard are games that SOE picked up and made sure
that they would still keep going. The Matrix Online was a really different beast indeed, as SOE bought the game post-launch from Warner Bros. and could easily see how many people were (or, in this case, were not) playing it.
So, it's certainly possible to cultivate a game to a position where it can earn a corporation a little bit of money and at least begin to support itself. Even if that couldn't be the case for Tabula Rasa, NCsoft could have avoided all of these PR problems by simply being truthful with the players. After all of that, honestly, I'm not sure if I really can trust a new launch from them, as much as I want to play Aion.
Update: Troy Hewitt, the community manager of Pirates of the Burning Sea explained to me that PotBS chose SOE as a publishing partner, whereas the article previously misrepresented that. We've also added a link to information noting the compensation current players will receive from the company.
Colin Brennan is the weekly writer of Anti-Aliased who really, really, really wants to play Aion but feels NCsoft let him down. When he's not writing here for Massively, he's over running Epic Loot For All! with his insane roommates. If you want to message him, send him an e-mail at colin.brennan AT weblogsinc DOT com.
